10/25/2016

Ssshhh! How the cult of quiet can change your life | Life and style | The Guardian

Ssshhh! How the cult of quiet can change your

life
Silent retreats, silent restaurants and even silent dating events are on the rise. Now a
new lm aims to quietly spread the word
Lara Williams
Sunday 23 October 2016 15.00BST

nce the preserve of monastic retreats and hardcore meditators, simply

being quiet is growing in appeal. Whole businesses have sprung up to
meet a rising demand for quiet time, from silent weekend getaways to
silent dining, silent reading parties and even silent dating. This month sees
the release of documentary In Pursuit of Silence, a meditative lm about
our relationship with noise, promoted with a delicate two-minute trailer in
which not a word is uttered.
Silence can, as the lm attests, mean dierent things to dierent people. It
can be a space for quiet reection or a state fraught with discomfort. There
is a certain intimacy inherent in being silent with other people we usually
do so only with those closest to us. So there is something almost radical
about the recent trend for enjoying silence with strangers.
Mariel Symeonidou started a regular silent reading party in Dundee just
under a year ago, in a moment of uncharacteristic extroversion. Readers
bring their books and meet in a bar, where they read together in silence for
an hour or sometimes two, then put the books away to chat and have a
drink.
The concept began in the dimly lit, retro-furnished cafes and bars of Seattle.
Devised as a literary hangout for those who dont like spoken-word nights
or discussion groups, the premise was simple: show up, shut up and read.
The trend has spread to New York and since found a home in the UK, in
London and Edinburgh as well as Dundee.
When the reading starts, everything goes quiet, says Symeonidou. Its a
little bit surreal, especially in what is usually a bustling bar. However, there
is something special about sharing that silence with others. It oers an
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opportunity for escapism; everyone is so busy with work and with

technology being ever present. An event like this gives people the
opportunity to escape these things for a while.
While the readings are now tranquil and relaxed, Mariel concedes initial
iterations were a little awkward. This discomfort is precisely where the
radical power of silence lies, says Matthew Adams, a lecturer in psychology
at the University of Brighton. Silence is often something we experience as
uncomfortable, as a rupture in the social fabric, an awkwardness we want to
cover over with our voices.
Adams has a long-term interest in the social, cultural and psychological
signicance of silence, and particularly in shared silence and electing to
share silence. Collective silence is about connecting with others in a way
that gets underneath social conventions. It confronts us with what it feels
like to be in the physical presence of other human beings without any
games, strategies, reading or misreading of intentions. It is a temporary
suspension of our reliance on talk.
The absence of chatter can have social advantages. Londons silent speeddating event organisers Shhh! say that we are instinctively better at
communicating and choosing the right partners when we have the chance
to put aside words and see each other as we really are.
Shhh! hosts regular speed-dating sessions and singles events, featuring
non-verbal irting games and eye-gazing; neatly side-stepping all the
what-are-you-watching-on-Netix questions. Claimed to be a favourite
with creative professionals in their 20s and 30s, Shhh! boasts a busy
programme of events until the end of the year. The sessions begin with
games to break the ice, including jumping around in front of a potential
mate and making paleolithic noises. Then comes a somewhat standard
speed-dating set-up; attendees are paired o for a limited window of time,
communicating only with gestures, before engaging in 60 seconds of
uninterrupted eye contact. After the event you are dutifully furnished with
the contact details of interested parties and if youre lucky enough to land a
second date, you can maintain the established embargo on chit-chat,
whisking them o for a silent dinner date or a mute trip to the pictures.
Honi Ryan is an artist based in Berlin who began hosting silent dinners back
in 2006. An otherwise ordinary dinner party setup, albeit with a ritzy vegan
menu (regular dishes include baked almond soy mushrooms and Lebanese
beans), the rules of the dinner are: no talking, no using your voice, no
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reading or writing, try to make as little noise as possible, do not interact

with technology, and stay for at least two hours.
Ryan describes the silent dinners as social sculptures engaging with the
changing nature of communication and the space between people. So far
she has taken her silent dining project to Mexico, the US, Australia, Lebanon
and China. The global reach is fundamental to the project, as is the inclusive
and international menu. Its evident that the age-old connections we make
over food do not depend on the words around it. Silence creates the space
for the people and places involved to ll with whatever is needed; it strips
away our rehearsed social behaviours.
Perhaps the most well-known silent social is the silent retreat. Recently
featured in an episode of BBC comedy Fleabag, silent retreats vary in tone
and purpose, and are more popular than you might imagine. The retreats
often have a religious or spiritual element, with Buddhist, Christian and
Catholic retreats making up the majority. They can last anywhere between a
couple of days to a few weeks, set in locations that are usually ttingly
pastoral, in old farm buildings or country piles.
Silent retreat regular Peter Cadney rst discovered the power of silence on a
10-day vipassana silent meditation course, in 2013. The technique
emphasises developing a connection with silence and accessing the
stillness within yourself.
There had been a number of events in my life that I hadnt been able to
deal with very well; things like relationship breakups and the death of a
close friend. Id spent years working at a computer and was feeling the
eects of muscle tension, anxiety and stress. I felt drawn to nding
somewhere quiet to sit in order to nd peace within myself.
Cadney says silent meditation has helped to improve both his mental and
physical health. When I rst sat down in silence, it felt very peaceful. I
started noticing just how many thoughts were coming and going in my
mind, it was as if there had been no space for silence.
Cadney has since given up his oce job and now works as a holistic
therapist. As soon as I sat down in that meditation hall I thought: this is
where I am supposed to be.
Swiss Artist Salome Voegelin also found a purpose in silence. However,
rather than nding silence soothing or nulling somehow, it instead opened
her mind to the radical possibility of hearing. She describes silence, not as
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the absence of sound, but as the beginning of listening, though she has
some reservations about the egotistical tendencies of the current trend
for silent getaways.
While these events are contemplative and respectful, I wonder how much
of the silent listening is spent obsessing about ones own silence rather than
hearing others and the environment, she says.
Voeglins book, Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of
Sound Art posits silence and noise not as opposites but as dierent ends of
the same spectrum. There is no true silence. Its a state that allows me to
hear my breathing in tandem with yours, the rumbling of my stomach, the
gurgling of the radiator. It provides a time out. Its when we start to listen to
each other.
Silence assumes a new meaning in an era in which we are consuming
information and engaging in conversation with each other endlessly,
without ever opening our mouths. While we may watch The Pursuit of
Silence and enjoy the absence of sound, how many of us will be tempted to
check in with our emails, tweet our thoughts on the lm? While we might
nd pleasure in those rare and cherished moments of peace and quiet,
when it comes to silence and stillness, can we muster up the self-restraint at
all?
In Pursuit of Silence is on release now.
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